[1826] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
who's connected where (was: Commercial Use Scenario Part 2)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bob Sutterfield)
Wed Jan 1 23:40:28 1992
Date: Wed, 1 Jan 92 23:38:21 -0500
From: Bob Sutterfield <bob@roughy.MorningStar.Com>
To: cook@tmn.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Gordon Cook's message of 1 Jan 92 14:21:54 EST (Wed) <9201011421.AA03947@tmn.com>
Reply-To: bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield)
Date: 1 Jan 92 14:21:54 EST (Wed)
From: cook@tmn.com (Gordon Cook)
Now one of the BEST recent features of the net is the gateways
between Compuserve, ATTmail and MCImail (and maybe some other
commercial mails I am unaware of?) Which networks currently house
these gateways?
Traceroute reveals that compuserve.com is connected to AlterNet;
attmail.com is MXd through att.att.com which is connected to OARnet
which is connected to CICnet/NSFnet and to ANSnet; and mcimail.com is
connected to Merit, which is also connected to CICnet/NSFnet (and
presumably also to ANSnet :-). Others of interest might include
DASnet (a major commercial e-mail interconnectivity service), which is
MXd through UUNET; Byte's Information Exchange, which is also served
by UUNET (though ns.uu.net offers neither an A nor an MX record for
bix.com); and AppleLink, some sort of service of Apple Computer, which
is connected to BARRnet. There are other commercial e-mail services
out there, pick your favorite and poke around with traceroute, whois,
and a domain groper.
For a CompuServe user, or a user of a DASnet client network, to
legally send a message to either an ATTmail user or an MCImail user,
either ANS or OARnet would need to join the CIX. Or perhaps UUNET
would need to sign ANS's agreements. Or there may by now be a web of
private links in place between those various services, completely
bypassing any of the Internet-accessible networks, and rendering any
Appropriate Use and connectivity agreement discussions moot.
